001Uh, item 1.1 is a call to order for the study session. Our study session is called to order at 4 pm. Item 1.2 is our budget total revenue and expenditures. I'm going to turn over to Associate Superintendent Chris Herman. Thank you, President Nelson, uh members of the board, superintendent tenius, and everyone here in attendance uh this evening. U just wanted to um start this presentation um really as a reference for anyone that wants to know more about our budget or details on how our budget works, point them to this budget report that we've we've done for actually the last seven years. it can pretty much start u be a good starting point for answering questions that anyone might have. I'm going to have a few repetitive slides again just for the sake of people who
002may not have been to all the study sessions or any of the study sessions. Um so just repetitively this slide is presented in each budget meeting in case again someone hasn't been able to attend and it simply explains that our spring budget presentations have followed the format and the characterizations of funds that are defined by the USFR and how that aligns with our other reporting structures that are used for school district and for governmental reporting. This slide is a recap as well, but I wanted to um again present it because it shows that all of our fund categories and all of our fund types have been covered throughout the entirety of our spring study sessions. And then finally, uh, we're at the point in our budget process where we can now cover and quantify all
003of the district-wide expenditure information and compare those amounts against the revenue assumptions that we talked about earlier in the spring across all of our fund categories and give that entire financial picture for next year's budget. As of now, the state has not passed a budget for next year. So, the numbers we will review in tonight's presentation are still estimates, and it's possible that there could be changes between now and then when the board votes on the proposed budget on June 23rd. If there are any changes that take place uh and could take place between now and then, then we would identify them during the June 23rd board meeting. And at this moment, I would like to just recognize and acknowledge and thank the finance team that has spent so much time to get us to
004where we are today. That's our director, Brian Lachery, Joanne Thorson, and Marbel Oliv Smith. The three of them have done an incredible amount of work, and I just want to thank them for all of the time and effort that they put into this year's budget and entire process. So before we discuss the numbers in ne next year's budget, I do want to spend a few minutes reviewing Kyne's budget procedure, I should say, 3-101- C. And why is that important? Well, it's important because it explains and outlines some of the key elements that are followed as part of our annual budget process. And this budget procedure was created in the spring of 2020 in order to provide more clarity and accountability to our overall budgeting process. And there are five main areas that are defined by
005this procedure. The first is to prepare and present a balanced budget. And a balanced budget means that the current year revenues are equal to or greater than the current year expenditures. However, there may be circumstances and considerations and and exclusions made for situations such as one-time expenditures, instances where expenditures are made from prior year carry forward balances or timing issues where you might have expenditures um received in a different time period than when the revenue might have been or I'm sorry, the expenditures made in a in a period of time that might be different from when the revenue was received. And as you'll see later in this presentation, these elements are part of the budget for next year. The second main area is to utilize a f a fiscally responsible process that maximizes the resources
006that will benefit students. And this practice is designed to spend the maximum amount of dollars in the classroom areas. And some important ways to maintain fiscal responsibility and provide that transparency are to use zerobased budgeting concepts and ensure that spending decisions are aligned with our overall goals at Kyne. Zerobased budgeting is a concept that has been in place for the last eight budget cycles here at Kyne and it means that expenditures must be reviewed and justified independently each year. And it also means that any unspent funds and district office budgets do not roll over into the following year. However, we do allow schools to roll over any of their unspent balances into a future um fiscal period. Zerobased budgeting concepts are also applied across all of Kyne's budgets regardless of whether they are school-based or
007districtbased. And Kyne has also followed the practice of aligning budget resources to our goals and objectives and our strategic plan. I think you'll see that later in the presentation. We'll talk more about that and we've done that for many years now, but this will continue to be our practice going forward. Two other areas that are included in this procedure relate to developing long range capital plans for both curriculum and facilities. These plans were presented during the May 12th study session and having these longer range plans helps to ensure that the district has long range visibility into all of our upcoming capital projects. And finally, every three years we will do a thorough review and analysis of our reserve balances versus peer districts across the state to encourage I should say that Kyne's balances are appropriate
008and also in line with bond credit rating expectations. And that review took place this past April 14th. So next I wanted to talk about some of the key assumptions and key areas for next year's budget. and want to start off by recapping the impact on next year's maintenance and operations revenue, which is the largest funding source in our budget and supports our day-to-day operational areas for uh such areas as general education, special education, transportation, and other district-wide functions. So, if there are any changes to M revenue, this will have a direct impact on our expenditures. This slide lists the significant changes to M revenue compared against last year's budgeted amounts. The first line relates to enrollment changes and enrollment decline represents the largest change in our M funding for next year and that would be
009captured in what we call our group A portion of our state funding formula. And as we talked about a little bit on the in the May or I should say March 24th study session, there is an expected decrease next year of 593 students versus last year's budget. That equates to a reduction of state funding of $3.5 million. But it's important to mention that this decrease is not being driven by families leaving the district, but rather a result of declining birth rates and a lack of housing turnover. And these factors simply mean that there are fewer kindergarten children entering our schools next year versus the number of eighth grade students who are promoting on to high school each year. The next line, the increase of $1.7 million listed for state inflation funding. That assumes the maximum
010amount that school districts can receive and that Kyne can receive next year, which would be a 2% increase over last year's funding uh base level funding amounts. State statute prescribes that school districts receive an annual inflation funding amount and that increase is equal to the lesser of 2% or the annual change in the GDP price deflated which is a measure of annual inflation. And although the state has not passed a budget yet, we feel that using a 2% increase is a safe assumption because it aligns with guidance we have been given as inflation in our state has run higher than the 2% level last year. I'm often asked questions about how the state funds increases for employee compensation. And the short answer to that question is that Arizona does not provide any specific amounts in
011its funding formula that is dedicated for employee compensation. Inflation funding is the only annual funding increase that school districts receive per state laws and state statute. But that funding increase has to be used to cover any and all increases in the coming year which includes compensation increases as well as things like increases to utilities insurance rates, medical costs, contract cost escalations, or increases in Arizona state retirement contributions. So the reality is that a substantial amount of that state inflation funding increase is consumed by higher cost increases that incur in other areas at Kyne every year. And you can also see that the negative impact from that enrollment loss can and often is substantially more than any increases in the state's inflation funding. So this is why Kyne has to lower or sometimes we say rightsize
012our expenses each year in order to align with these changes in state M funding because that is the only way we can provide employees with salary increases and maintain a balanced budget for next year. You can also see on this table the impact on M revenue from other factors such as teacher experience um index amounts which is about $400,000 we are expecting and also a $1.2 million increase in expected group B waiting and funding for next year. And as we talked a little bit about in that March 24th study session, that group B waiting is applied only to students that are identified in specific areas that require more services or more specialized types of education, language supports, or other supports for students with more severe developmental needs. weights for these categories are typically more significant
013than the group A waiting or other um weightings in the funding formula because um they account for additional costs that are necessary to provide more comprehensive services to those students. Kyne has seen an increase over the last several years in the number of students needing more specialized types of educational services. And although these higher numbers typically equate to higher funding amounts, the reality is that the funding for these types of services is often not enough to cover the actual costs that Kyne incurs with Kyne special education funding gap being millions of dollars which I will uh show and highlight later in the presentation. So this means that the overall impact to MO revenue for next year when you add up all the pluses and minuses is expected to decrease by roughly $200,000 versus last year's
014budget. Often right after I talk about lower M funding from U enrollment declines, one of the first questions I'm asked is, well, how are you going to balance your budget? And so the short answer is that we align our expenses with those expected funding levels each year. And during the 20 2021 time frame, Kyne developed the concept of using a timeless spending model as a guideline for how we make budget and spending decisions across the district. The concept of that timeless spending model is to look at how expenditures should ideally be spent across the different operational areas in our organization. And we developed this model in conjunction with the auditor general's annual spending report because these ratios and categories illustrate how expenditures have historically taken place across Kyne and it also serves as a north
015star when we prepare an upcoming budget. It also helps ensure that we continue to prioritize keeping our classroom spending at the highest possible levels, which is a point of pride for our district and has been for many years. And that is something that we um don't want to change no matter how big or small our budget becomes or changes each year. Just as a point of reference, this past year, Kyne had the fifth highest classroom spending percentage in the entire state of Arizona. And typically we're in that top 10 category year-over-year. So again, that's not something we ever want to see changing, even if our budget's getting a little bit smaller each year. This graph that I'm showing um is the breakdown of spending categories from the Auditor General's classroom spending report along with our
016targeted levels of classroom and non-classroom areas. From from a spending perspective, Kyne spends close to 75% of our funding in the category that would be called classroom spending, which represents instructional areas within the classroom as well as other areas that support both students and instruction. So this is the model we use when developing our annual budget and it helps ensure that any particular area across the district isn't overly burdened or disproportionately impacted from expenditure reductions and that our future budget decisions allow us to remain near that 75% classroom spending level as well. It also means that we must evaluate and rightsize our expenditures across the entire organization each year. And the following slides will go into more detail about what those expenditure reductions um are that we are making for next year. So on this
017slide it illustrates the expenditure reductions reductions made across district office budgets for the 2026 27 year. And it's important to mention that when we talk about making expenditure reductions, we're not lowering the bar or reducing the quality of services provided out of the district office, but rather we are looking to find ways that are more cost-effective or more efficient ways to perform those same activities to rightsize our organization with any changes that may occur in annual student enrollment. For fiscal year 27, you can see the total is that the expenses in these areas will be reduced by a net of $900,000 across all district office budgets. The major categories for district office budget reductions are shown on this graph and include over a million in personnel costs, about $181,000 in professional and contracted services, and
018it also includes $325,000 of increases next year for supplies and services. Most of that results from higher property insurance costs that we are receiving as a district for uh next year's um property tax bill. I should say insurance bill, not property tax. We don't pay property taxes. Um if you are looking at how closing schools may have impacted these areas, that total savings of $900,000 breaks down into $700,000. That's part of our normal budget reduction activities that we do every year and is not related to closing schools. And about $200,000 of the reductions that you see on this slide would be related to closing three schools next year. And again, this is just the district office portion. Um, so that's district level reductions and this slide talks a little bit more about school budgets and
019school allocations. For school budgets, the situation on how budgets are determined is a little different than the district office because staffing allocations and other budget allocations are based on staffing formulas which make them a little bit more variable and therefore may naturally adjust up or down based on changes that happen with enrollment. Because we are expecting a decrease of about 592 students next year. This means there will be fewer teaching and support positions that are needed overall across the district. And the total budget reductions related to staffing allocations would be $2.9 million. Now, I need to mention that this change is not related to increasing class sizes or changing any studenttoteer ratios in our schools. And often people assume that we are balancing our budget by just eliminating staff and thereby increasing class sizes or
020staff allocation ratios. But this is not the case as we have left the class size ranges and teacher allocation methodologies unchanged. Next year schools will receive the same per pupil allocation for M and capital budgets as the prior year but again because of lower enrollment there will be some small changes in the overall amounts allocated and I've listed those on the slide as well. Next year, schools will also receive the same per pupil allocation of Proposition 301 monies as we've done for many years. And those funds can be used for a variety of areas to support students and teachers. And it's also important to mention that unlike the district office budgets, school budgets are allowed to roll over into the next year, which means that schools can spend any unused balances in future years. And
021just like the district office, school budgets will also see some reduced expenses that are related to closing three schools next year. So again, if you wanted to know what those amounts are, um it's about $1.1 million. And that amount aligns to what we estimated and shared with the board and community this past year. It's important to mention that there were no reductions in force. Sometimes we refer to that as an a riff or um um reduction in staff for next year as our entire team has worked really hard to make this possible and ensure that everyone who wanted to stay in Kyne had a position for next year. So early in the presentation I talked about the financial impact of enrollment declines and the $3.5 million of reduced funding in ML revenue. But this situation
022has actually been happening at Kyne for many years now. So it's not a new phenomenon that our district is facing. So with this slide, I want to illustrate to our board and community how Kyne has been responding to this funding impact from both a budget and financial perspective. Each year when we know the impact from lower enrollment, we rightsize our budgets for the coming year so that they align and offset to any lost funding that may occur from enrollment changes. And this work is necessary in order to develop a sustainable budget where our operating expenses are aligned with our current year revenues. So for the 2026 27 budget, the overall district-wide expenditure reduction, as you can see in the far right hand um column, is um almost $4.9 million, which is a combination of the
023$900,000 district reductions plus $4 million of school reductions that we saw in the previous two slides. And if you wanted to know how much of that total $4.9 million was related to school closures, that amount is notated at the bottom of the slide and equates to to $1.4 million. And again, that's aligned with what we talked about in our uh spring and summer and fall presentations with the board and community. Also on this slide, you can see the amount of budget reductions that have taken place over the last 10 years, which equates to $29.2 million. And this amount represents permanent cost reductions to Kyne's operating budget and is not related to the impact from any capital spending items or any one-time events or any grant u amounts as well. $29 million is a sizable amount
024and that represents a 26% reduction when compared against next year's ongoing general fund operating expenditures. The funding loss from enrollment over the same 10-year time period was $28.1 million. So this means that the amount of budget reductions have been essentially equal to any funding loss, which is why Kyne has been able to produce and maintain a balanced budget over the last 10 years and also provide employee compensation increases even during these tough financial and fiscal periods. This slide slide shows the same information as the previous graph except it shows the specific areas that have been reduced and in the interest of transparency I've separated the amounts related to school closure which you can see listed in the different uh graph labels. The largest amount on this slide is uh representing reductions that were made in
025personnel costs, which represent almost $25 million and about 85% of the total amount. Since almost 85% of Kyne's overall operational budget relates to personnel cost, and that's pretty typical across all school districts in Arizona, it shouldn't be surprising that most of these reductions have also taken place in that area. I've also shown how these personnel reductions break into school-based and districtbased employees and those amounts and those percentages and ratios also align to our timeless spending model percentages as well. You can also see there have been other reductions taking place across the district and other areas and so um you may also notice that there have been other areas that have actually increased over this time period like utilities. So, um, again, we've had to reduce or find situations to reduce our budget even beyond what
026we've experienced in some areas that have increased. And one question again that I'm often asked is whether these personnel costs and positions were reduced because of district-wide layoffs, reductions in force, systematic eliminations of programs, or the increase in class sizes or class size ranges. And the answer to that question is no. Kyne has actually lowered its class ranges in its lower grades over the same time period. And when reducing personnel costs, Kyne always looks at attrition, reorganizing departmental work, retirements, or eliminating unfilled positions first rather than implementing a reduction in force for a particular program or area of work. And although there may have been a few occasions where a person's position might have been changed or possibly eliminated, there would have been other opportunities within the district for that person to move into. And
027I also want to mention the amounts on this graph that are related to school closures. They're separated into personnel costs, which is $1.3 million, and building operational costs, which are $64,000. a smaller amount, but I do want to mention that although no decisions on the buildings or facilities have been made for next year, that small reduction in building operational costs is related to a scope of work change that we were able to negotiate with our custodial vendor for next year as we will have fewer rooms and buildings to clean and maintain. This slide was actually shared during the May 12th presentation about compensation, but I wanted to show it again because it really pulls together the largest and most impactful areas of our budget. And it also helps to show how employee compensation increases are
028sustainable and part of a balanced budget for next year. The amounts may be a little bit different. This was done back in early May. So again, some of the amounts may be uh a decimal point off from what we just talked about, but um I thought it was better to bring the same slide back rather than changing any of the amounts. So when we talk about employee compensation increases, I'm only referring to permanent compensation increases and not stipens or other one-time employee payments. So this graph shows the largest changes related to the 202627 operational budget which are broken into the factors that create either a positive impact which would be the blue bars or a negative impact on the budget which would be represented by the orange bars. This also means that things like capital
029funding, capital expenses or any other nonoperational expenses would not be part of this discussion. And typically there are three large factors that influence our operating budget and ultimately factor into how much money is available to invest in employee compensation. The first is how much money is is received from state inflation funding. We've talked about that amount for next year. It's $1.7 million. The second is the impact from enrollment changes. We've talked about that. That's a negative $3.5 million. And the third is any permanent reductions to operating expenditures that we can make. across the district. And again, we've talked about that. Uh for next year, it's about $3.5 million that are not related to school closure and about 1.4 million um and on this slide, it was represented as 1.3 a month ago that are related
030to school closures. So, if you look at the blue bar, you can see all the areas that are impacting next year's budget in a positive manner. That's equal to $7.5 million and was a result of reducing expenditures um across the board like we talked about both from closing schools and all the things that we do every year that are not related to closing schools. Also a million dollars in additional funding from group B and teacher experience index funding that we're expecting to see for next year and also that $ 1.7 million that we talked about for additional inflation funding from the state funding formula. In the orange bar, you can see that there's a negative impact of the enrollment loss funding, which was $3.5 million. And so, in order to maintain a balanced operating budget
031for next year, those pluses and minuses have to add up. And so, it meant we could invest up to $4 million into permanent employee compensation raises for next year. And that is what we brought to the board on May the 12th. So, this is the challenge we face every year when enrollment funding declines. And it means that we will always have to decrease our operating expenses in an equivalent manner in order to build a sustainable operating budget and also be able to provide compensation increases for employees as well. So on these next four slides, I do want to highlight some of the key budget areas that are always part of the discussions that we have in developing our annual budget. And the first is around special education, which I alluded to earlier. And so on
032those earlier slides, we talked about the impact of group A funding, which is funding for all students. But I wanted to illustrate the impact of special education that it has on our overall budget. So this graph shows the special education funding that Kyne receives from all sources, all funding sources, which is a combination of state money from Arizona's funding formula, which makes up almost 90% of the amount that we receive in special education funding. But I've also included any grant or federal funding that Kyne receives as well and that's represented in the blue columns. The expenditures are shown in the orange columns and they include the corresponding costs to educate and support our population of students. And you can see that over the last 10 years the revenues related to special education funding have been
033increasing. They've never been as much as the expenditures. Um, but those revenue increases have mostly occurred because the population of children receiving special education services has also been increasing. But the expenditures you'll see are also increasing and often at higher rates than what we receive in additional funding. So this is often referred to as the gap between special education funding versus the actual expenses incurred. And for instance, in the last year shown 2425, the expense uh the expenses that we incurred to support our special education programs and students was $3.9 million lower than the total amounts of revenue that we received. So unfortunately, the timing for this data is difficult to pull together because funding and expenses are captured in many different ways throughout the year. So I'm only able to provide accurate data through
034most the most recent completed year which would be 24 25 but I can tell you that the results for our upcoming budget for fiscal fiscal year 27 would show a very similar story. Another important area to cover for next year is teacher salaries. And this slide shows 20 years of history for average teacher salaries at Kyne. And the amounts shown represent base salaries only and do not include things like stipens, performance contracts, or any other performance pay amounts. Next year's estimated amount for the 2026 27 average teacherbased salaries are over $61.4,000. $4,000. Just a couple of things to point out about this data and this graph. This data includes salaries for all of our certified teachers who are represented on our certified teachers salary schedule whether or not they teach in the classroom. So sometimes
035we talk about narrow definitions of teacher. This is all um all teachers. It's it's a broad definition of teachers. The average teacher salaries are influenced by the overall age demographics of the te teacher population. So that means that the average amounts can swing year to year. And this often happens if there are a high number of veteran teachers who retire versus the number of new teachers that might be hired in any given year. So when you see the averages drop yeartoyear, this is likely what's the uh the cause of that. In the 2022 23 time period, there was $6.5 million of new state funding and that allowed us to provide a 7% increase to teachers that year, which is why you see such a sharp rise in that time period. Also the 201617 school year
036is referenced on this graph because that was the baseline year the state compared against for the 20 by 2020 teacher salary funding initiative with the state providing additional salary funding during the 2018 2019 201920 and 2020 21-year period. And I just want to say regarding that 20 by 20 increase in state funding for teacher salaries, if you're doing the math or want to check those percentages or amounts, it's important to mention that Kyne did not receive enough funding from the state to truly provide a 20% salary increase for all of our teachers. Really for two main reasons. The first is that the state's funding calculation was based on overall statewide averages for teacher salaries and was not based on the average salary within each particular school district. Because Kyne's teacher salaries were higher than the
037overall state average, the funding amount we received was less than what our district needed to actually provide a 20% increase. And the second area is that the state provided additional funding only for the number of classroom instructional teachers which is a smaller subset of the overall population of teachers across our district. However, Kyne, like many school districts across the state, includes more individuals in its definition of teacher than the narrow narrower definition that the state used. And this meant that the funding that we received was spread over a larger number of teachers than what the state used in their calculations. So because of those two reasons, Kyne received about $2 million less from the 20 by 20 state initiative than what was actually needed to provide a 20% increase for all of our teachers over
038that three-year time period. Another important important important area that is reviewed during and and evaluated during our budget process is to compare Arizona's minimum wage amounts versus Kyne's lowest hourly wage, which is defined in our A10 salary schedule band. So this slide shows the difference between Kyne's lowest starting wage in that A10 band versus the Arizona minimum wage. So in 2016, the first year on this chart, prior to the minimum wage laws taking effect, Kyne paid a $187 more than the minimum wage amount. But that began to change quickly as the state's minimum wage laws began to take effect with increases occurring every year on January the 1st. So on January 1st, 2019, the Arizona minimum wage actually exceeded Kyne's A10 amount, meaning that we had to increase our lowest wage in order to be
039compliant with the state minimum amount. This also began to build wage compression as employees who were paid at amounts higher than that A10 level did not see those same increases. And I also want to point out that Prop 206, which was the proposition that increased the state's minimum wage amount, did not provide any additional funding to school districts to increase any of our hourly wage uh for our wages for our employees. This situation occurred every year in that time period for the next three years. And in the 2022 23 year, the district made a decision to bump its A10 wage well above the state minimum while also decompressing the entire A band of the salary schedule. And you can see those decisions and explanation listed in the text box above that year. And that pushed
040uh Kyne's lowest salary $121 above the state minimum at that time. However, Arizona's minimum wage laws have raised the state's minimum wage faster than what Kyne has been able to afford. And you can see that gap shrinking over the last few years. Kyne currently pays 52 cents above the state's current minimum wage, which is $15.15. and Kyne's starting A10 wage, which would be that lowest wage for the 2026 27 year, will increase to $15.98 on July 1st, and that will increase our pay to 83 cents above the state minimum wage amount. However, we won't know um uh until January 1st of 2027 what the um actual state new minimum wage amount will be. So, we have to wait till we get closer to the calendar year to actually know what that might be. And you
041may remember from um sever the last several years that Kyne's budget has contained both ongoing expenditures as well as amounts considered to be one-time, meaning that they would either not recur at those same levels in future years or that funding for these areas would would be a year-to-year decision. This year's budget has the same considerations as previous years and includes $7.7 million of one-time expenditures. And those amounts are shown on the slide along with an explanation of how the funding source was available. So these onetime amounts include $2.4 million for employee retention stipens, $1.7 million for special education, and that represents the premium expected premiums to be paid for contracted employees and contracted services. $700,000 for operational costs. That represents the premium paid for contracting bus drivers and also for the transportation attendance stipen. And
042funding for these three areas was possible due to expected budget savings in our current 202526 fiscal year with most of that occurring from vacant positions that we were not able to fill. And rather than build build our reserve balances or our carry forward balances, we have decided to invest that money into these areas for next year. $800,000 is listed for school counselor positions. That represents the additional counselor positions and it's 12 for next year that were not funded through the safe school grant. And those additional positions will be will be paid for next year by using reserve balances in our classroom site fund. $2.2 $2 million is also included in ne in next year's expenditure budget to support initiatives related to the strategic plan and would include things like student student and school support areas
043professional growth and development as other resources that might be needed to support schools employees and our facilities in order to achieve Kyne's strategic plan. Funding for those areas was made available in the beginning of the fiscal year 24 year with the intention that this money would be held and span across multiple years throughout the entire strategic planning period. So if you are a numbers fan, this is the the moment you've been waiting for. Um, this slide shows the summarized financial picture for total revenues and expenditures for all of our fund categories and all fund types in our 202627 budget. And when we talk about the district-wide budget, only our governmental funds are typically shown and proprietary funds are normally not shown or included in the consolidated financial numbers because their principal operating revenues relate to
044amounts for health benefits or other charges to district departments for goods and services. And this simply means that the revenue and expenditures for proprietary funds are already accounted for in another governmental fund category. And that's why only governmental funds are considered when you look at the total revenues and expenditures for the district because it prevents the duplication of these amounts in the financial statements. However, I'm still tonight showing the proprietary fund amount as a reference in the interest of transparency and also to show that these funds are balanced for next year. But these amounts won't be included in the presentation when we vote on the adopt or when we vote on adopting the budget on June 23rd for next year. So, in order to see if a district or if Kyne has a structural balanced
045budget for next year, it's necessary to separate those ongoing revenues and expenditures versus any one-time amounts. And if you remember from the discussion earlier about the procedure that addressed that, a balanced budget means ongoing revenues are equal or greater than ongoing expenditures and exclusions should be made for situations such as one-time expenses or whenever we're using carry forward balances from the prior year. So, I'm separating the total revenue and expenditure amounts into one-time versus ongoing amounts. For the 2026 27 year, there are no one-time revenue amounts projected, but you can see that $6.9 million has been budgeted as one-time expenditures within the general fund. And those amounts uh those amounts were covered on the previous slide along with $800,000 shown as one-time expenditures in the special revenue funds amount which again relates to how we
046are using reserve funds in our classroom site fund to pay for those additional counselor positions next year and also was covered on the previous slide. We often talk about Kyne balancing its budget even during times when we've lost a significant amount of funding due to enrollment changes. And I do want to make sure the board understands that we have built a balanced and sustainable operating budget for 2026 27. Most of our operating budget which again is used to fund those day-to-day operational activities across the district is contained within the general fund. So, if you look at the ongoing revenue and expenditure amounts that I've highlighted in red for the general fund, you will see that the ongoing revenues are projected to be $112.3 million for next year with a um versus I should say total
047operating expenses of expenditures of just under $12.3 million, meaning that we have produced a balanced operating budget for our 2026 27 fiscal year. If we walk through the other fund types that are listed, you'll see that the special revenue funds shows ongoing expenditures of $ 38.6 million versus ongoing revenues of $37.5 million. And that difference of $1.1 million is caused mainly from timing issues with grants or other cash funds when spending actually occurs versus when funding is received. and it also includes the impact from our athletics program and that's projected to lose about $236,000 next year. The large $23.6 million difference between total revenues and expenditures in the capital funds line is also due to timing issues as there are often gaps between when spending is anticipated to occur versus when funding was actually received.
048So next year, most of that difference relates to our bond funds. Um, as we do not expect any bonds to be sold next year, but we will have $23 million in capital project expenses that will be funded from bonds and they were sold in the spring of 2025. So finally, the revenues and expenditures and debt service on the final line are expected to be equivalent for next year and balanced as well. So this is uh the last spring budget study session. And so the next step in the process is to call for a public hearing during the June 23rd board meeting and also vote to approve the proposed budget and that same that same um June 23rd time period. We are not allowed to make any changes between the proposed budget that will be presented
049and voted on June 23rd and the adopted budget. And on July 7th, we will hold a public hearing to discuss the adopted budget that's required by state statute and then vote on the adopted budget during the normal portion of the governing board be meeting as that action must take place by July and submit it to the state by July 15th. This timeline assumes the legislature will pass and the governor will sign a budget before that June 23rd timeline. But if for some reason that does not happen, we will most likely receive some additional instructions and guidance from the state on what those next steps and timelines would look like. That has happened before. So, um, at this point, we're hopeful, but we'll respond appropriately based on how things transpire. So, with that, that's all the
050content I had for tonight. I'm happy to uh address any questions that you might have. Any board members have any questions? Member Walsh? Thank you, Mr. Herman. Uh, appreciate you putting this together without the clarity from the state on what the budget is. I do happen to note we heard from some of our legislators last night. I think they expect to have a budget this week and potentially sign as early as Friday. Fingers crossed. Um, we'll see if that actually happens. That'd be very helpful. Um just one question for you which is on slide eight which is on our revenue changes versus prior year budgets and in particular on the decrease for state funding for group A funding. I think you just passed it. Yep. There you go. Um I think you rightfully observed that
051the 3.5 decrease is primarily driven by uh declining school age enrollment in our communities. Um I know that we've reflected that with our demographer. Is that number also looking at our capture rate and have there been any adjustments to our anticipated capture rate whether that's related to school closures or otherwise over the years? That's a great question. And so what we've done for um this next year is we've worked with our demographer every year when we project enrollment. Um we have included the guidance and the recommendations on potential impacts to communities that have had new boundaries or other changes that we made to to schools uh especially from the closed schools. So, yes, that number and that $3.5 million is inclusive of those recommendations. That would be potentially on top of what our normal um
052enrollment changes might look like. Great. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, great. Uh yes, I actually have a He didn't hear that because he doesn't have the mic on, but thank you, Mr. Herman, for your presentation. I did have a question. I know one of the things that we we talk about often is our use of one-time funding where I think due to the change in our not being able to access grants to fund, you know, our additional counselor positions, our dedication to our students mental health and their well-being. Uh totally inappropriate use. I am curious what would happen because these grants seem to be dependent on whoever is the administrator of those grants and those change politically every couple years. Um, so I'm curious from a district perspective and our commitment to mental health,
053like how do we go about navigating that so that we continue to fulfill our commitment to have our students have the support they need at each site? Yeah, I think so. We've talked about that uh as far as the the challenge we face with these grants sometimes is that our contracts go out March. The grant information doesn't come back until April. We have a few other grants that we still don't have back at this time. So, it's really challenging to know how much funding you might or might not have for some of these areas. So, we always talk about what is our commitment going forward regardless of what the grant monies may or may not contribute towards that. And I I'm happy to let um anyone speak to this because we talked about this as
054far as what do we want to provide for support at schools regardless of what the counselor grants would come back at. So that's kind of how we landed financially at how we're going to pay for it next year. Now ongoing um I think the dust may have to settle a little bit with the grant because there may be some opportunities. This has happened before where it's a three-year cycle and all three years may not look the same as far as eligibility or funds that are available. So, we know that there could be some changes with the grant, but we tried to make a long-term commitment and what we need to have for supports for our schools going forward. You said that very well. So, we landed on, you know, what could we feasibly do? Let's
055say we had no grants next year for some reason. Um but what would happen is so for example we know how many this year we are funding the rest out of one-time money. Let's say all of a sudden next year the state finds more money and says we're going to fund you know five more instead of we still are going to hold on to that onetime money or the money that we would need to fund that many. And just like we do our staffing formulas every year going forward, we're going to make sure that our ongoing expenses include the number of counselors that we are committing to. And should we get a grant, we'll just push that money off to sort of a reserve as an emergency should something like this happen again and we
056see bigger cuts from the state. So we have a plan to ensure that we continue to be able to fund the number of counselors um that we need. We also are really looking at what the middle school model looks like knowing what's coming with our middle schools and how they're going to get quite large and one counselor may not be enough at each middle school. Great. Thank you very much. Uh any other member Walsh? I just wanted to thank you for pointing that out because I know the case loads are a area of concern and the needs of our students have only grown and the school consolidation is going to add additional stressors. So thank you for prioritizing that. I believe that's probably it, Mr. Herman. Um, so seeing no further questions, item 1.3 is
057concluding our study session. Our study session is concluded at 4:49 p.m. Item 2.1 is calling our regular meeting to order. Our regular meeting is called to order at 5:00 p. p.m. Um, item 2.2 is a decision whether or not to consider a parents appeal and review a teacher's decision to promote a student to the next grade. Um, is there a motion to consider the appeal? I motion. Is there a second? Second. All in favor, please say I. I. Motion passes three to zero. Item 2.3 is convenient to executive session. Is there a motion to convene into executive session? I motion. I will second that. All in favor say I. I. Motion passes. Item 2.5 is conclude executive session. May I have a motion to adjourn this evening's executive session? I motion. Is there a second?
058Second. Motion by member Collins, second by member Walsh. All in favor say I. I. Motion passes three to zero. Executive session is adjourned at 6:19 p.m. Item 3.1 is reconvene the regular meeting. Uh schoolboard meetings, as you all know, are held in public to conduct the business of the district. We believe that education is a partnership between school and home and we respect the rights of parents and guardians and value their role in our district. And we know that students thrive when we all work together. Um, board meetings are streamed live on the internet and will be available on the Kyne website 24 hours about after they air or done being hosted. Superintendent Laura Tenz and senior leadership are with us tonight. Item 3.2 is roll call. Will board members state their names for the
059record? Kevin Walsh, Cedric Collins, Terrina Nelson. Let the record show that three board members are present. Item 3.3 is a moment of silence and pledge of allegiance. Um, I would love it if Dr. Sarah Collins would lead us in tonight's pledge. Item 3.4 is our land acknowledgement. Kyne School District acknowledges that our community of schools is located on the ancestral lands of the Aam and Peash peoples who have inhabited these lands since time in memorial. With this land acknowledgement, the district formally recognizes that the traditional care and keeping of these lands by native peoples allows us to be here today. And item 3.5 is the Kyne promise. We promise to provide welcoming, inclusive learning environments in which every student is honored, valued, and feels a strong sense of belonging and purpose. We promise to provide
060rigorous, responsive learning environments in which every student is given what they need to develop knowledge, skills, confidence, and a passion for learning. We promise to provide vibrant world-class learning environments in which every student believes they are empowered and prepared to make a meaningful impact on a rapidly changing world. Item 4.1 is preview and approval of the agenda. Are there any changes to tonight's agenda? Right. Seeing none, I'm going to make a motion to approve tonight's agenda. Is there a second? Second. Second by member Walsh. All in favor say I. I. Motion passes three to zero. Item 5.1 is superintendent report. Superintendent Tenus. Thank you, President Nelson. Nelson, sorry, governing board members, um staff here this evening, and community members that have joined us either online or in person. I have just a really quick um
061update. As you know, my superintendent updates get a little um skinnier during the summer. So, um this evening, I have just a few slides to share. I want to kick off with just recognizing that since our last um board meeting, we celebrated our eighth grade promotions across the district and another GLA class of eighth grade students have promoted to high school. We could not be prouder of each of you for persevering academically, socially, and emotionally. We can't wait to see what the coming years hold for you all. Congratulations to our eighth graders. Whoops. There we go. Also excited to share at the beginning of this year, the kids club teams at Logos, Marada, and Paloma set a goal to become accredited through the Arizona Center for After School Excellence. Throughout the process, they work diligently
062to learn and implement the Arizona afterchool quality standards, further strengthening the exceptional programs they provide to our students and families by participating in coaching sessions and professional development opportunities. The teams were recently notified that all three programs have successfully earned their accreditation. This is an outstanding accomplishment and I would like to recognize and celebrate the coordinators who led this important work. Teresa Anderson, Natalie Alvarez, and Andrea Qui Quhano. Please join me in congratulating these teams on their well-deserved recognition and for their commitment to excellence in our Kyne Kids Club programs. Thank you. And on the final day of school, I had the privilege and honor of visiting um Kina, Estraa, and Manus to support school leaders on a day that carried extra weight this year. The last day is always filled with an array of
063emotions. There's excitement for the summer break ahead and sadness, too, as our fifth grade students depart their elementary schools for a final time and our eighth graders moving on to high school. But for these communities, this goodbye was especially hard. It has been inspiring to see these communities come together to celebrate the history of each campus over the last few months. And I am thankful to everyone for sharing their memories and love of these schools. While the buildings may close, their legacies will live on in every student, family, staff member, and community member who shared part of their lives with each campus. To the students and families continuing their journey with Kyne next year, you are bringing the best of these communities with you and our receiving school communities are ready and excited to welcome
064you in July. And that concludes my superintendent update. Thank you. Item 5.2 is board member statements. Do any board members have statements this evening? All right. Item 6.1 is request to speak to the governing board as per board policy 1-302. The Kyne board invir invites the viewpoints of citizens throughout the district. Inerson members of the audience may address the governing board by filling out a blue card uh that's usually provided at the signin table. Written comments can also be submitted electronically through a link sent out in the board meeting notifications and those comments will be recorded and filed online as part of the board meeting minutes. Um, Miss Tenus has informed me that there are a total of zero public comments submitted this evening. So, we will have no time. Um, uh, and we're going
065to move on to item 7.1, which is the consent agenda. Are there any changes to the consent agenda? All right. May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I motion. Can I get a second? Second. All in favor say I. I. Motion passes three to zero. Item 8.1 is purchasing authorization designation of soul source providers. As a reminder, um our next three agenda items, so 8.1, 8.2, 2 and 8.3 were removed from consent uh for to presentation just because of the board's directive that all consent items over a million dollars be brought forth as a presentation item for discussion if we need to. Uh Mr. Herman is available to answer any questions the board may have. So I'm going to turn the time over to Wait, do you have No. Okay, cool. Okay.
066Uh do any board members have any questions about that? All right. May I have a motion to approve the designation of sole source suppliers and the estimated expenditure amounts for the 2627 fiscal year? I motion. I will go ahead and second that motion. All in favor say I. I. Motion passes three to zero. Item 8.2 is the purchasing authorization and the renewal for district procurement contracts. Do any board members have questions from me? Mr. Herman. May I have a motion to approve the renewal of the multi-term procurement contracts to previously awarded vendors for the estimated amounts for the fiscal year 2627? Oh, my motion. You said motion, right? Yeah. Yeah. Motion. But I heard both of Oh, it was both of you. Okay. I'm going to go with Mr. Walsh. And I'll do a second
067by member Collins. All in favor say I. Motion passes three to zero. Item 8.3 is the purchasing authorization and it's approval to purchase material and services through cooperative purchasing contracts. Do any board members have any questions for Mr. Herman? All right. I'm going to make a motion to use the cooperative purchasing agreements with the state procurement office, Mojave Educational Service, Omina Partners, Greater Phoenix Purchasing Consortium of Schools, the Strategic Alliance of Volume Expenditures by Board Purchasing Cooperative, the Interlocal Purchasing System, and One Government Procurement Alliance, One Government Procurement Alliance, and Sourcewell. Is there a second? Second. All in favor say I. I. I. Motion passes three to zero. All right. Item 8.4 is the FY27 strategic plan process. Superintendent Tenius. Thank you. In front of you, um, board members, you should have the one-page handout
068of our strategic plan. You might choose to reference this this evening as we're going through the presentation. Just wanted to make sure you saw that. So tonight, we are pleased to provide an update on the Kyne strategic plan 2328, Thrive Ready for the Future. As we conclude year three of our five-year plan, we have reached an important milestone, celebrating the progress we have made while looking ahead to the opportunities and work that remain over the next two years. Tonight's presentation will highlight the accomplishments and results achieved during the 2526 school year, reflect on our progress towards the goals outlined in the strategic plan, and share the key area of focus for 2627. Throughout the presentation, you will hear from members of our cabinet team who have led and supported this work across the district and
069will provide insights into our continued commitment to ensuring every student is ready for the future. Before we review this year's progress, I'd like to revisit the foundation that guides all of our work. This slide highlights the Kyne promise, our commitment to ensuring every student is prepared to thrive in an everchanging world and the strategic goals that serve as the roadmap for achieving that purpose, that promise, sorry. These goals continue to guide our priorities, our decision-making, and our actions as we work together to support student success. This slide highlights our theory of action, the belief that when we work together with a shared purpose, align our efforts, and remain focused on what matters most for students, we create the conditions for success. This year, perhaps more than any other, called on us to collaborate across departments,
070schools, and teams in ways that reinforced how interconnected our work truly is. The progress we will share tonight is a result of a district-wide commitment to a common vision. from the governing board to our teachers, staff, leaders, students, and families. Alignment around our strategic priorities is essential to ensuring that every Kyne student is prepared to thrive in high school, college, career, and life. Our theory of action reminds us that achieving this vision is not the responsibility of any one individual or department. It is the collective work of the entire Kyne community. As we move into this next section of the presentation, we will provide a high-level overview of the strategic initiatives accomplished during the 2526 school year. While this is not an exhaustive review of every action taken, it will highlight the significant work that
071has advanced our strategic plan and moved us closer to achieving our goals. You will notice that several initiatives are bolded when we get into each of these three imperatives. These represent initiatives that have either been completed or launched during the first three years of the plan, demonstrating the meaningful progress made to date. Later this evening, you will also hear about the key initiatives that will guide our work and focus our efforts during the 2627 school year. So, first I'd like to hand it off to Dr. Sander Lane, our executive director of academic equity and excellence. And because we're going to be bouncing around quite a bit, they're going to go ahead and stay in their seats and present from there. Dr. Lane. Good evening. Thank you, Superintendent Tenius. This year for early literacy, we concentrated
072on strengthening instructional practices through collaborative structures and datadriven decision-making. K2 teachers participated in grade level planning days that provided dedicated time to analyze student work, align instruction, and share effective practices. In addition, every school continued the work of a tier 1 data team and new this year supported by a district level team to monitor student performance, identify trends, and ensure instructional supports were responsive to student needs. To further strengthen our continuous improvements ef improvement efforts, we partnered with the district management group and utilized the breakthrough results process. This work helped us evaluate systems, identify opportunities for growth, and focus our efforts on strategies with the greatest impact on student achievement. As a result of these collective efforts, we are seeing positive trends in student performance across multiple measures. While there is still work ahead, the
073data indicate that our focus on strong tier one instruction, collaborative planning, and strategic use of data is helping move us toward our goal of preparing every student to be ready for the future in social emotional learning. This year, we continued implementation of the character strong curriculum across the district with ongoing emphasis and expansion at the middle school level. To ensure consistency, schools tracked implementation and usage of the curriculum, providing valuable information about how students were engaging with these learning experiences. As schools reviewed their social emotional learning survey results, many saw positive growth in key indicators related to student belonging, relationships, and overall well-being. Um through continued implementation, we've highlighted the importance of intentionally teaching um social emotional competencies alongside academic skills. As for um the implementation of integrated educational technology, a committee has been created
074to oversee the implementation of the district technology plan goals and timeline. The committee meets once a quarter and consists of administrators and teachers from across the district. This year the committee's work focused on the creation of a technology integration um look force tool to be used by administrators and teachers. The Kyne student technology use matrix that was developed will provide administrators and teachers with a tool to help them to identify and provide students with highle learning opportunities using technology. Future Ready Schools team has also started to embed technology integration in districtwide professional development offerings. District ed tech facilitators have worked with the professional development and content area academic equity and excellence facilitators to embed technology integration into districtwide professional development. For example, this year, our district facilitators worked together to integrate technology into the K2
075science professional development to provide teachers with ideas for how to use robotics and productivity tools to deepen understanding of science concepts being learned. The district ed tech team has started to provide professional development for administrators on I'm going to use an acronym um ISTY which is the um international society for technology educators um their technology standards and standards from the Arizona Department of Education um for students um and use of a model to determine um the type of technology we're using. It is called the SAMR model. Whether we are just replacing technology with um you know is my is my Chromebook a piece of paper or is my Chromebook a way for me to um change the way I present information kind of thing. So um and we are using that to make sure um
076also that we are um and working on safe and effective use of AI for students um artificial intelligence. So the district ed tech team has also begun working with academic equity and excellence facilitators to create integration guides to be used by facilitators and teachers to help identify how technology can be used to support students learning in the different content areas. They have also started work on creating a bank of technology integration exemplars. These exemplars that have been gathered are authentic Kyne kid created work samples and highlight what highle technology use can look like in different content areas and grade levels. And now I will pass this off to Dr. Gar Cup, our executive director of school effectiveness. Thank you Dr. Lane. This year, our work in dynamic teaching and learning environments moved from concept to
077practice by expanding flexible learning opportunities and continuing to build staff capacity and responsive and inclusive instruction. Examples include our Spanish online options for our students and our elementary EL model, our e- English language development model, and also our continued support for our Kyne online students. We also continued our professional development journey that supports students where or supports classrooms where students are actively engaged, collaborate and also use feedback, demonstrating understanding in different ways and take greater ownership over their learning as well. And this year we also engaged in a special education opportunity review. That work really did begin with us focusing on the teaching and learning conditions in that area and it evolved into a deeper focus on co-planning and a way for us to strengthen our inclusive instructional practices and you'll be hearing a little
078bit more about that later in this presentation as well. In terms of the whole learner focus, we continued our focus on the whole learner ensuring that our systems support students academically, socially, emotionally, physically, and cognitively. This year that work included continuing to focus on attention in early literacy and progress monitoring intervention structures that we have in place, data informed supports, and as Dr. Lane alluded to a little bit earlier, our social and emotional learning and student sense of belonging. How this looks in middle school, our advisory classes and our teaming structures continue to be important examples of the whole learner support. These structures helped our students to build relationships, feel connected to school, and receive the support that they need from the adults who know them best. Across both of these initiatives, this year's work
079helped strengthen the connection between inclusive instruction, flexible learning options, academic support, and also to support student sense of belonging. Oh, it's one too many. Yep, there we go. And I also have the privilege to share our progress for highly engaged people and culture. This year, our portrait work focused on the portrait of a school leader. We developed a draft of the portrait of a school leader using our behavioral event interview competencies identified for school and district leaders. And these are the same competencies that we use for hiring and placing school leaders. This draft was shared with our lead principles for some initial feedback. We also continued to implement innovative staffing models at many of our elementary schools and our middle schools as well. One focus area within our modernizing recruitment and retention practices initiative is
080enhancing the onboarding experience that we have in place for new employees. As part of this effort, talent management recently redesigned the onboarding process for substitute employees. And beginning on July 1st, new substitute hires will complete portions of their required onboarding training online, reducing the need for coming in person for group processing sessions and creating a more flexible and efficient experience for the employee. In addition, we reviewed the findings from the compensation study and that was presented in a proposal to the governing board on May 12th for revised salary schedule for therapists and psychologists. The proposed changes are intended to strengthen our ability to recruit and retain highly qualified professionals in these critical positions. Customer service is foundational to our ability to foster high leverage partnerships. We designed a Kyne customer experience model and introduced it
081to our school leaders way back in the beginning of the school year back in July, but we paused full district roll out of this in order to prioritize long range planning work. Another area of focus is enhancing our employee evaluation process and strengthening the systems that we have in place to support it. In July, we will launch this coming July, we will launch a new evaluation platform that includes enhanced features designed to support evaluators providing timely, meaningful, and actionable feed actionable feedback to employees. This system will house professional development opportunities as well for our employees and all of our employee evaluation systems will be housed in there as well as hiring and recruiting information as a one-stop shop. And now I'm going to introduce Mr. Chris Herman, our associate superintendent and CFO. Thank you. under
082optimal operations and resources. Much of the work during the 202526 school year centered on long range facilities planning. This work took place throughout the year and included continued long range planning committee meetings, stakeholder feedback opportunities, board discussions, and public hearings to support a thoughtful and transparent process. That committee, district leadership, and our demographer worked together to review projected enrollment trends, evaluate facility usage, and bring forward recommendations to the governing board. This work provided the board with the information needed to make important decisions about school closures and consolidations with the goal of maximizing resources and ensuring Kyne is positioned to serve students effectively in the years ahead. Work in program evaluation continues as we refine and align our systems and operations to be increasingly interconnected, efficient, and effective, ensuring that district resources are strategically invested to
083maximize academic outcomes and return on investment for our students. And with that, I'm going to turn it over back to Dr. Lane to discuss some other areas. Thank you. So under teaching and learning conditions, the district built upon the work of the special education opportunity review by transitioning from the review phase to implementation of the recommendations. The work focused on strengthening systems, supports, and practices to better meet the needs of all learners. The implementation phase has moved into dynamic teaching and learning environments. Under resource allocation, the district continued its commitment to enhancing Kyne's portfolio of innovative and competitive learning models that meet the diverse needs and interests of students and families. During the 2526 school year, the district launched the gifted opportunity review to evaluate current programming and identify opportunities for growth and improvement. This
084important work has engaged stakeholders in examining how Kyne can best serve gifted learners and will continue into the 2627 school year. The district also gathered stakeholder feedback regarding the future of its traditional learning model and began exploring what a consolidated traditional and non-traditional school model could look like. Excuse me. The work focused on understanding community needs, identifying opportunities to strengthen programming, and envisioning innovative approaches that provide meaningful choices for students and families. These conversations and planning efforts will continue into the 2627 school year as the district further develops its vision for future learning opportunities. I will now pass this back to Superintendent Tenius. So while the strategic initiatives represent the actions we take to advance our work, the true measure of success is the impact those efforts have had on our strategic plan goals. In
085this next section, we will shift our focus from the work that was accomplished to the results that were achieved, highlighting our progress towards the outcomes outlined in the Kyne strategic plan and the ways those efforts are helping ensure that every student is prepared to thrive in high school, college, career, and life. I will now pass it to Dr. Susie Osmeire, executive director of accountability and performance management that will take us through some of the metrics related to our strategic plan goals. Thank you, Superintendent Tanya, Madame President, members of the board. This evening, I'm honored to share some really, really encouraging news. Our goal for our early literacy goal are for early literacy is 85% of students in grades K through three will meet their endofear dibbles reading benchmarks by 2728. And I'm especially proud to
086highlight our kindergarten progress this evening. Look at this growth yearover-year from 74% all the way up to 86%. That's a testament to the work happening in our classrooms every day. When we break this down by grade level, you'll recall our two identified grades this year are kindergarten and first grade. They're highlighted there for you. We've already celebrated kindergarten's growth. So, let's turn to first grade. They came up a little shy of the goal this year, but they have made positive gains. clear movement in the right direction. Next year, we'll widen our lens to include second grade alongside their peers of kindergarten and first. This is the district level picture aggregated by grade. But the story gets even better when we look at it by school. We have so much to celebrate for our kindergarteners. We
087grew the number of schools meeting our 85% goal to 14 this year, up from 10. And if you look at the relationship between the benchmark hashmarks and the height of each column, you'll see even more reason to be proud. The vast majority of our schools lifted students in early literacy with real growth across both years. These results reflect intentional teaching, strong instructional practices, and an unwavering commitment to student success. I just want you to look at that for a few seconds. And our first grade results are also trending in the right direction. We doubled the number of schools making benchmark from five to 10 with most schools also showing growth between the years. The growth we are seeing in the percentage of kindergarten and first grade students meeting early literacy benchmarks is an encouraging indicator
088of future success. Strong early literacy skills provide the foundation for all future learning and these gains position students for continued academic achievement as they progress through the grade levels. Over time, the sustained growth is expected to contribute to improvements in our overall academic progress metric, reflecting the long-term impact of investing in literacy at the earliest stages of our students educational journey. Here we turn our attention to the academic progress. Here in Kyne, we've built a three-pronged approach that values growth just as much as hitting the grade level standard. The three pieces are the percent of students passing, the percent who are growing, and the percent who are on track to pass. And as you'll see, we weight them very intentionally. Passing is weighted at 12.5% of the overall score. The first piece is the most
089familiar, the percent of students passing the state assessment. It's exactly what it sounds like. What share of our students passed in English language arts and what percent of our students passed in mathematics? This is worth 12 and a half% of the score, the smallest slice of the pie. And that's by design. Let's look at growth. How do we measure growth? It's a little bit trickier than it sounds because we can't just subtract one year's score from the next. On the state assessment, just like in our classrooms, the bar rises with every grade level. So, the real question isn't whether a student is above the line or below the line, it's whether they're moving forward from where they stand. A student working below grade level grows by closing the gap, getting meaningfully closer to mastery from
090the year before. And a student already above grows by pushing further beyond the standard, not just holding steady. For every student, the expectation is the same. Keep moving forward. On track, finally, the largest piece. on track worth a full 50% of the score. This is where that three-year goal comes to life. We're not just asking whether a student passed today or whether they grew since last year. We're asking whether they're on a trajectory to reach and stay at grade level proficiency. For each student with multiple years of data, we measure their performance against where they need to be to stay on pace. And this cuts both ways. A student who's passing today but trending downward gets flagged as not on track. An early signal to step in before the slide ever becomes a failing score.
091Because passing in a single year was never the endgame. The direction a child is heading is what matters most. That's why it carries the greatest weight. It captures not a single moment but the full arc of a child's learning. And when a student is on track, it tells us the work is paying off. the kind of steady progress that adds up to real lasting achievement. Our goal for academic progress is 70%. We began the strategic plan with a baseline of 57, increased to 62% in year 2 and remained at 62% during the 2526 school year. While we are encouraged by the gains made in the early years of the plan, we did not see the level of growth we had hoped for this year and recognize that we are still short of our goal. This
092result tells us that we have more focused work ahead to ensure consistent growth across the grade levels. While we will not be examining grade level results in detail tonight, we will take a deeper dive into the data during our first governing board retreat at the beginning of next year. That analysis will show that some grade levels demonstrated stronger growth than others and will help inform where we need to concentrate on our efforts moving forward. As shared, as more students meet literacy benchmarks in kindergarten and first grade, we expect those foundational skills to positively impact academic growth in future years and contribute to the continued improvement in our overall academic progress score. This slide highlights academic progress results by school and illustrates the variation that exists across the district. Currently, four of our schools have met
093or exceeded our strategic plan goal of 70%, demonstrating that this level of performance is attainable. We also saw encouraging growth at several schools during the 2526 school year. At the same time, some schools experienced declines in their academic progress scores, resulting in district-wide performance remaining below target. These results reinforce the importance of continuing to focus on academic growth and ensuring that effective practices are implemented consistently across all schools. As we enter the final two years of the strategic plan, improving academic progress remains a key area of focus and we will use these data to guide our support the resources that we allocate and improvement efforts across the classrooms. Since a belonging goal was to increase the percentage of favorable responses on the endofear survey by at least 10 percentage points for students in grades 68.
094Beginning with a baseline of 39% we have seen steady growth each year through the first three years of the strategic plan. This year, 49% of responses were indeed favorable, allowing us to achieve our 5-year goal two years ahead of schedule. These results reflect the intentional efforts of our schools and staff to create welcoming, inclusive, and supportive learning environments where students feel connected and valued. While we are proud of this accomplishment, we also recognize the importance of sustaining and building upon the success as we move forward with middle school consolidations in the 2627 school year. Maintaining a strong sense of belonging for all students will remain a key priority. We are committed to ensuring that students continue to feel connected, supported, and engaged throughout the transition and beyond. Looking by school, four of the eight schools
095have already reached or passed our 49% target. Those are the green bars you see here. The black tick marks show each school's prior year result. So you can track the year-over-year change right alongside the success. And when we step back to the district level, the trend tells a positive story. steady growth over the three years from 39% to 47% and now 49. This isn't an isolated bright spot. It's districtwide and it reflects the intentional sustained work of our staff on every single campus. Our equity goal focuses on increasing proportional representation of student groups in advanced coursework. gifted identification, disciplined referrals, and suspensions. We established a baseline of 58% in 2324 and saw significant improvement to 73% in the following year. During the 2526 school year, we maintained that progress with an overall score of 73.
096These results indicate that our systems are becoming more equitable and that student groups are being represented more proportionately across these key areas. At the same time, maintaining our score rather than increasing it reminds us that there is still important work to come. As we look closely at the data for individual student groups, we continue to see opportunities to reduce disparities and ensure that every student has equitable access to opportunities, support, and positive outcomes. Over the final two years of the strategic plan, we will remain focused on advancing this work and building on the progress we have achieved thus far. It's been very exciting reviewing data with you this evening. I will pass the mic back to Superintendent Tenius. Dr. Osmeer, before I go to the next transition slide, can you just um give a little
097explanation about what the colors mean on this slide? Yes, I would be happy to. I know there's a note, but it's pretty small just to make sure that the board really understands. Yes. So what we've done here is we've illustrated through the matrix in front of you the groups of students along the left hand side and then where students showed a proportionate relationship to the overall population as parallel to the um percentage of the population they share um in the school setting. When they are proportionate they immediately got flagged as blue. That's success. we're matching. When they have a category of over or under, it means that they're not directly proportionate. However, when it is coded as blue, it means we've made strides toward proportionality. So last year if they were over and they remained
098over but a little less so then we credited um our classrooms and our activities to really showing that we're making progress. The same is true if it's under and it's coded blue. It means that last year they were also under. This year we made progress to shoring up the overall results to proportionality and it's under represented or over represented just so you understand what the under over what we mean by that. And the boxes that are not shaded are areas that highlight where we have work to do. And we do not include you can see there's three student groups that are not included in the formula. um that is for our English learners and our students with disabilities. Thank you. Thanks. So, as we conclude our review of the work accomplished during the 2526 school
099year and the results achieved to date, we now turn our attention to the future. The next section will highlight the priority focus areas that will guide our efforts during the final two years of the Kyne strategic plan with a particular emphasis on the 2627 school year. While we have made meaningful progress over the first three years of the plan, our work is not finished. The initiatives and priorities you will see next are designed to build upon our successes, address areas where additional growth is needed, and ensure that we remain focused on achieving our strategic goals. I will now hand it back to Dr. Lane. Thank you. While we will work while work will continue across all future ready schools initiatives, the 2627 school year will focus on a select group of priorities that have the
100greatest potential to impact student success during the final two years of the strategic plan. We will continue to stay the course with early literacy, building on the strong gains we have seen in our youngest learners and ensuring that the systems, structures, and instructional practices that have contributed to this success remain deeply embedded across the district. As students progress through the grade levels, we will continue monitoring the long-term impact of those efforts on overall academic growth and achievement. At the same time, we will maintain a strong focus on social emotional learning, whole child supports, and fostering a sense of belonging, particularly as students and staff navigate school consolidations and transitions. Ensuring students feel connected, supported, and engaged during this period of change will remain a district priority. We will continue advancing the integrated educational technology initiative
101by intentionally embedding technology into curriculum instruction and learning experiences. This work will focusing on will focus on leveraging technology to enhance student engagement, support personalized learning and strengthen instructional practices, preparing students for with the future ready skills needed for success beyond Kyne. Additional priorities include clarifying and operationalizing the growth continuum model and continuing the implementation of dynamic teaching and learning environments. Looking ahead, our focus in dynamic teaching and learning environments will be on creating greater clarity and consistency around what highquality engaging learning experiences should look like across Kyne. This includes learning environments where students are actively engaged, collaborating, using feedback, demonstrating understanding in multiple ways, and taking increasing ownership of their learning. A major component of this work will be the comprehensive design of the middle school experience including instructional practices, schedules, advisory structures, intervention
102and enrichment opportunities, electives, student supports, and technology integration. We will also continue expanding co-planning practices and beginning a review of gifted programming to identify opportunities to strengthen access identification consistency and support for gifted learners across the district. As we move into the final two years of the strategic plan, we will also bring greater focus to the growth continuum model. While important systems related to literacy intervention, progress monitoring and the use of student outcome data are already in place. Leaders identified the need for greater clarity around how the model should operate in practice. During the 2627 school year, we will work to define the model more clearly so it can guide decisions related to instruction, intervention, enrichment, and accelerated learning and stu student growth across the system. Together, these focus areas will help ensure that every
103student is engaged, supported, challenged, and prepared for the future. I will now pass it off to Dr. Cup. Thank you, Dr. Lane. While we continue across While we continue the While the work will continue across the area of highly engaged people and culture initiatives, our focus during the 2627 school year is going to center on strengthening leadership development, improving the employee experience, and also building systems that attract, support, and retain exceptional staff. A key priority for the upcoming year is going to be finalizing and implementing the portrait of a Kyne school leader. Once finalized, the portrait is going to be introduced to all school and district leaders and we will identify opportunities to integrate these leadership competencies into our daily work which will include leadership meetings, interview processes, leadership development, and alignment with the Kyne
104key values. This work will establish a shared vision for effective leadership and provide a consistent framework for developing and selecting leaders across the district. We will also continue to modernize modernize recruitment and retention practices by enhancing the onboarding experience for all employee groups. In addition to improving the onboarding processes, we will monitor the time required for new hires to complete the onboarding complete onboarding and identify opportunities to streamline procedures while maintaining positive and welcoming experiences for all employees as resources allow. We will also continue to evaluate positions identified in the compensation study as significantly misaligned with market rates and pursue adjustments that support our ability to recruit and retain highquality staff. To address the ongoing special education teacher shortages, we are collaborating with university instructors to create an instructional assistant to teacher pathway. This three
105semester program will support aspiring special education teachers by providing instructional assistance with the preparation, guidance, and resources that they need to successfully earn certification and enter the classroom. In the area of high lever high leverage partnerships, we will continue to the implementation of the Kyne customer service customer experience model through the development of training modules for staff. Additionally, the district has recognized partnership oversight by leveraging existing talent and aligning outreach efforts under a single director. This structure will strengthen our coordination, increase efficiencies, and also expand opportunities to build these partnerships, these meaningful partnerships that support both staff and student success. Mr. Herman, thank you. While work will continue across all optimal operations and resource initiatives, our focus during the 2026 27 school year will center on successful implementation of the long range facilities plan, strengthening
106program evaluation and developing more differentiated systems of support based on school and district needs. For the long range facilities plan, the district will continue focusing on the successful implementation of school closures, consolidations, and transitions. This work will include maintaining transparent communication with stakeholders, engaging the community throughout the process, and bringing forward recommendations regarding the future of closed facilities. We will also explore opportunities to maximize district resources through strategic partnerships and innovative use of facilities and space. In program evaluation, we will continue to deepen our work to more effectively measure the impact of programs, services, and investments and use those findings to inform decision-making. This work will pick back up next year with finalizing applicable policy and procedure requirements aligned to the budget cycle, ensuring that evaluation results are directly connected to resource allocation, tiered supports,
107and strategic priorities. We will also begin developing stronger systems for tiered supports by differentiating district resources, service, and operational supports based on school performance and identified needs. This will help ensure that support is deployed more efficiently and effectively while aligning resources to the areas where they can have the greatest impact on student outcomes. So with that I have the privilege of concluding the presentation but not the obligation of answering all the questions. So uh our team would be happy to uh address or answer any questions that you might have. You should answer them all. Well, well, well. We have questions. Uh, board member Collins. Um, yes. Can we go to slide 19? Slide 19. And those of you who already know me, you already know where I'm going with this. My question is as I
108look at the black economically disadvantaged and students with disabilities, I look at their referral and suspension rates and it says over been teaching for 20 years and I've written three referrals in my entire teaching career and that's only because a kid called me a racial slur. So, what I'm trying to figure out is how is it that this these three groups that I just named, and you don't have to answer today because maybe we don't have that information, but what is being put in place to minimize these referrals and suspensions? And I get it. I'm a teacher. I sometimes you got to do what you got to do. But I'm just trying to figure out why do these three groups have overending referrals and suspensions? Three under both gifted refer or under the gifted referrals
109and suspensions. One group under those three areas or are you talking about three different groups? You look at the student group, you look at black. Yep. economic disadvantage and students with disabilities. And maybe I'm reading it wrong. Correct me if I'm wrong. No, no, no. And which one? And students with disabilities. And you're just specifically looking at referrals. Referrals and suspensions because all three of those groups have over in both of those categories. And so where they're blue over which is a positive indication that the work that we're doing and I would say a lot of it centers in our middle schools specifically but also our elementaryaries in the work that we're doing around our social emotional learning specifically around sense of belonging has been very intentional in those areas. And so what you're seeing
110again you can't see the math behind here but if they are shaded blue it means yes they're still over represented but we are moving in the right direction. meaning those are getting closer to being proportionate. When we do our data review in the beginning of the year, we can bring the math behind this so that you can see how much closer they're getting to that and we can kind of dig in and see where and we can also look at it by school to really dig in where do we see schools that are seeing more positive results in these areas because right this is aggregate data right now. at the very highest level which sometimes you lose the stories in there about where we're seeing um schools that are putting in effective practices that are
111getting us to more proportionality. So I think um Dr. Osmeer, you got those notes for our data review, but those are really good questions. Um we do do a lot around um in our curriculum around you know culturally responsive teaching is part of our and there's a section in our um teacher evaluation around equity practices as well which would include that. Um but clearly there's still work to do in this area. Thank you. I will say though again I think you know the fact that we started this what was the if you go back the slide before at 58% and we're at 73 that's a good sign that what we're putting in place is having an impact but it's still not enough member Walsh thank you on slide team just commending the district for achieving
112two of those goals already. And I uh that's impressive and I I appreciate Dr. Ospire's espresso saying that we're going to remain committed to resourcing those initiatives to maintain and grow on that momentum. So, it's not just like check or done. Um and I'll I know you're working very hard on the data for academic progress and we'll get that into the data dive. So, well done. you know, some some great successes and then some areas that we'll continue to focus on. Um, just two comments on the strategic initiatives for this upcoming year. One relates to future ready schools on slide 21. Just some things I've I've heard about from from families over the last few months, and I think this is informed by things happening in our world, is the use of AI and technology,
113but AI in particular in the classroom. And I know Kyne does have district guidelines for AI that's publicly available. I think many districts don't have that. So commendations that we do, but I think that's just one of the things that this year and going forward we're going to want to continue to be really purposeful about. And there may be some choice elements among families almost like an environmental survey that you fill out for your kids preference next year. We may start to have families that are very allin and saying this is the future. and we may have some families that say, "I don't want my kid anywhere near this." So, making sure we honor those preferences as we continue to build out future ready schools. Um, and then on the very next slide, when it
114comes to the teaming models, um, and innovative staffing models, I'm just very glad to see that build out. Um, I know that was something that we we really explored with the Spark Academy and then we've kind of grown it um, at different levels and at different schools. So, even though Spark is not going to be going forward, I'm glad to know that the teaming models are going forward and I'm hoping we continue to expand those where appropriate because that staffing shortage isn't getting any better anytime soon. So, thank you for doing that. Thank you. And I just want to add, I don't have the data in front of me. Again, we didn't get down to individual schools too much, but um or grade levels at individual schools, but I know that we have some real
115success stories coming out of um the teaming model at Apprending Day this year and specifically around their eighth grade teaming model where she made some very intentional decisions. Um humanities is the word you hear a lot, right? ELA and social studies were paired together, but she was just telling me the story that um she made some intentional decisions to pair ELA and science together. she saw a 14% gain in her ELA scores this year. So, being just very intentional about um some of those teaming decisions can have a huge impact for our students. Thank you. I really appreciate this presentation. Um a question along the lines of what member Walsh was saying around technology, the district technology team, and I know we've got items for future consideration. I do know this would be a topic
116that a lot of families would be interested in learning more about um as far as how are we determining when technology is used. You made a really great point about is my Chromebook a piece of paper or is it a tool for me to create and kind of having that discussion I think publicly would be really beneficial. Um and I think board member Walsh is absolutely correct. I work in higher education. I teach in higher education and this is the first semester where I've had students approaching me if there are elements of AI in assignments asking for alternative assignments because of their their trepidation or their their phil philosophically opposed to it and so how can I accommodate those learning preferences and I've never encountered that before in my time teaching and so I know
117it's something that if it's happening you know with the the the young adults. I'm sure you know parents are kind of wondering what that looks like as well. Um really great progress as far as you know the early literacy rates with our kinders and our first graders and I know that um is really important. I did have a question on slide 19 um and it's around the shade the groups that weren't represented. I'm curious about students with disabilities not being represented in the advanced coursework or the gifted totals or even English language learners. Is there and I I was wondering if you could explain the determination to not include them in those. So sometimes you have to look at the context um of the definition of the population to really measure proportionality. We absolutely want
118to be transparent. we included in our reporting. But when you look at some of the identifiers or qualifiers for the student groups definition in and of itself, it would be in conflict or it wouldn't be in alignment for the placement in some of the other groups. So, do we have students with disabilities who attend and participate in advanced coursework? Absolutely. Some of that depends on the disability or the characteristic of the student which would qualify um for rigorous um academic placement that's in alignment with the student need. But it's not always a onetoone pairing. So we absolutely want to report on the grouping, but we also want to be sensitive to not wrapping everything up into the same box or the same calculation. um with our English language learners, you would find the same thing.
119There's a definition there on their capabilities in the language learning of itself. So, we want to give children the opportunity to to get to levels of competency in language before we start to evaluate um their participate participation in other things. And sometimes the qualifiers disqualify them from having some of the same options for a moment in time and then when they grow into um other intersections, they are captured in our other student groupings. Okay, great. Thank you very much. That makes sense to me. And then finally, my last two comments are around strategies that we're employing for the future. really creative about the IIA to certification pipeline. I I just Dr. can speak to that very like it was very very just innovative. Thank you. Um we actually it it came out of work that
120we have already been doing with university instructors and the reality is we are um bringing people into the profession with alternative certification and um they are successful at varying degrees. And so the idea is to really slow down that process a little bit to give them time within the classroom in a different role and then taking on gradual responsibility around special education like I'm responsible for an IEP this semester. I'm responsible for collecting data on a student. I'm teaching a group instead of taking on the entire role of a teacher, which we know is extremely challenging when you are fully certified and have graduated with a bachelor's degree in special education and much more challenging when you are in the middle of a degree program to become certified. So we are providing supports through university
121instructors as well as some coursework that we are offering here within the district to provide that support for this group of staff and um just building you know those and developing those staff ourselves um because we know that there is a ongoing and constant need for um special education teachers and so that is that work will begin um next here. I can't wait to hear more about it. I think that's especially one, there's a definitely a need, but two, I think it's very a thoughtful way of onboarding and like growth, professional growth and development for individuals if they decide that, you know, I want to continue to have a career in K12 education. What could it look like? What pathways are there for me that maybe are a little less um traditional? And then again,
122Mr. Herman, the resource allocation, the tiered support. I really, we always know there is not enough money, but I always appreciate the thoughtful approach that we take to making sure that all our kids have what they need. So, thank you very much. All right. Item 9.1, uh, board committee conference reports. Do any board members have any committee or conference reports? All right. Item 10.1 is items for future consideration? Any items for future consideration? All right. 11.1 is meeting dates. Our next regular meeting is scheduled for June 23rd, 2026. And item 13.1, I don't know how it's 13.1. It's actually maybe 12. I'm just reading what's here. Is adjournment. Can I have a motion to adjurnn this evening? I motion. I will second that motion. All in favor say I. I. Motion is passed three to
123zero. We are adjourned at 7:23 p.m. Have a good night.